The Policy of the Pineapple
by jenlovesbones
Summary: "But there has always been one mystery she hasn't solved. And it bugs her. A lot." A future fic for Sunsetdreamer's Graduation. A part of the 'Bones Je T'aime' series.


_**This one-shot is part of a series you'll find under the name **_**'Bones Je T'aime'**_** (under RositaLG's pen name), dedicated to Ren —Sunsetdreamer in these parts— who is graduating TODAY.**_

_**If you do nothing else, tell her how proud you are of her, by reviewing one of her fics or hitting her up on Twitter. Because as you must know, she's an amazing writer and amazing person and she's Canadian. It's a trifecta of awesome. And if you disagree with me on any of those points, I will start spreading the news that you have a contagious foot fungus and have always secretly shipped Brennan and Sweets.  
**_

_**Thanks to Tracy for the beta, Jenn for organizing the event and Ren for being a kickass student so that you could have a dozen new fics to read today (because failed-my-semester-fics don't have the same ring ;)). Also, thanks to you, just for reading.**_

_**This is a future fic… cause I love the idea of watching B&B's kid growing up, but would hunt the producers with a machete if they age-progressed her to a teenager on the show a la Soap Opera style. Tis what fic is for!**_

* * *

Christine Booth is a very intelligent young woman. That's to be expected, one would suppose, when you have brilliant, kind and understanding parents like hers. At age 16, she takes university courses, far in advanced of most of her classmates. She excels at sports, always completes her homework on time, and then starts in on the extra credit after she helps complete chores around the house.

When you think about it, her parents are pretty lucky to have her for a daughter.

She recognizes that being raised by two top-notch investigators, her curiosity about the world and her propensity to solve mysteries is innate.

But there has always been one mystery she hasn't solved. And it bugs her. A lot.

So she stands in the driveway of her house, staring at her front door, wondering if she would ever understand it.

_**oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo**_

_**(Nearly) Seventeen Years Ago**_

_She knew what he was doing. He didn't say anything. Or at least, he didn't say anything _to _her, directly. Not one word to her when he strolled in and kneeled to her side by the platform. And then he began to speak, but refused to acknowledge her. She moved to the other side of the table and he followed, continuing to speak._

"_And then, in Game 5 of the 1993 World Series, Shilling held the Toronto Blue Jays' offense, only giving up five hits and three walks during a complete game shutout that staved off elimination…"_

"_Booth!" Brennan shouted again for the third time, shouting loud enough that if there had been any lab employee not paying attention to the spectacle before, they certainly were now. "My office, now," she commanded, turning from him and walking down the steps._

"_What's the matter?" Booth asked innocently, standing up from his kneeling position and grabbing a bag from the floor before he followed her._

_She didn't speak until she was inside her office with the door closed. "Did you see where we were?" she gritted through her teeth._

"_Yeah… we were on the platform Bones," he answered slowly, pretending to wonder why she was asking._

"_And did you see what I was doing?" _

"_You were examining some muggle bones," he said with a shrug._

"_Mughal. Bones found in India that I believe date to the Mughal__ period. And muggle is not a real word."_

"_Yes it is," Booth said childishly, earning a glare from Brennan._

"_At the very least, you acknowledge that I was there, on the platform, in the lab, examining bones, correct?"_

_Booth shifted his eyes playfully as he considered her statement. "Yes, I acknowledge all of that," he conceded._

"_And yet you found that time, while I was working, to be an appropriate time to follow me around, _on your knees_ to talk to my stomach about trivial sports facts?"_

"_First, I was talking to our daughter, not any of your organs and second, you're not supposed work past 7 pm while nine months pregnant. We had an agreement."_

"_Booth…"_

"_And since you're not home, I'm not home," Booth said, crossing his arms, defensively._

"_All I needed was one hour to concentrate and approve Doctor Edison's findings. One hour. And that has turned into two hours with your hovering and I'm still not done yet," she shouted._

"_We had a deal…"_

"_I can take care of myself, Booth! And this find is important and I need to get ahead on my work before the baby comes. I'm fine and the baby is fine and you need to…"_

"_I don't care. You should be at home…"_

"_It's not going to hurt me or the baby for me to…"she said, stopping mid-speech as something caught her eye._

_They had been getting progressively louder with their shouting and a crowd of Squints still working late were watching them intently outside of her office. As Booth turned to see the crowd and the partners stared down the onlookers, they scattered._

"_We can't do keep doing this, Booth," Brennan sighed with frustration, taking the bag of food he was holding and turning to walk toward her desk._

"_Can't keep… doing what Bones?" he asked nervously._

"_Having these fights, of a personal nature, at work. At _my_ lab. How would you feel if I walked into your office and started yelling at you in front of other agents. Or if I crawled around your workplace, talking to your stomach."_

_Booth sighed, running his hand through his hair. "Well, I imagine you talking to my stomach would be a little tough to explain."_

_Brennan opened the bag of dinner he bought and found a fruit cup that she started nibbling from. Booth sat down across from her and slumped forward._

"_You know, it's pretty typical that we fight in the lab."_

"_You always say 'we don't fight, we bicker,'" she shot back. "And about cases. Not about… we should wait until we have privacy to discuss or _bicker_ about any personal issues."_

_Booth opened the container with his sandwich and grabbed it to take a bite. They both chewed in silence for a couple of minutes before Booth spoke up._

"_You know, I think we need a code word."_

"_Code word?" Brennan asked, brows furrowed._

"_Yeah, you know, something we say when we need to have a figh—bick —discussion."_

_She stuck her fork through the last piece of pineapple in her fruit cup and twirled her fork in her hand as she looked at him thoughtfully. "What word would we select…?"_

_**oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo**_

**Twelve years ago**

_Brennan paced around the kitchen, her hands full and her shoulder holding her phone to her ear. _

"_Hodgins, there must be some sort of chemical solution that gets paints out of this type of material… I feel safe in placing the blame solely on your wife… I didn't buy her permanent staining paints… She said she wanted to make them prettier for her Dad and that everything is art… I know that sounds like Angela… Hodgins! Stop babbling and tell me how to get paint out of baseballs! Without removing the signatures, preferably…"_

"_What happened to my… oh, God. Bones, what happened to my baseballs?"_

"_Oh… Hodgins. I have to go. Call me if you figure something out. Please," Brennan pleaded before hanging up, never taking her eyes off of Booth while he eyed the situation._

"_Booth, I am…"_

"_She painted my autographed baseballs… She… She…"_

"_I needed to reach the cabinet they were sitting in front of and I put them down on a lower shelf. I meant to move them back up, but I got a call and… I'm sorry, Booth."_

"_They're my… my autographed baseballs, Bones. My Joe... My Lenny Dykstra. And Greg Luzinski. And Tug McGraw."_

"_Hodgins is looking for a way to remove the stain Christine put on them… and if that doesn't work, I was thinking that many of these players are still living, and we could get them to sign new balls…" she stopped at his look of incredulity. _

"_Or re-sign these balls."_

_Booth choked out, "Tug McGraw is not with us anymore, Bones."_

_Brennan looked nearly ready to cry when she saw Christine move from behind her father's figure. "I'm really sorry I messed them up, Daddy," she said softly._

"_I'm sorry Booth…" Brennan added again. _

"_You know better, Christine…" Booth said harshly, and winced as he did it. _

"_Christine, I told you to go to your room. I'll come get you later," her mother lectured._

"_It's my fault Mommy. I don't want you to be in trouble," she said, and Brennan smiled, before nodding for her to go._

_They both listened to her loud steps through the house, up the stairs and heard her door slammed shut. _

_Brennan started and stopped, started and stopped again, while Booth just looked at the brightly colored baseballs on the counter. Finally, she walked to the refrigerator, opened the door, bent down, stood back up and walked to him quickly._

"_A pineapple?" he questioned._

"_I'm _really_ sorry."_

_Booth quirked his lips slightly, taking in her entire disheveled look and hands and arms stained in paint she'd obviously been trying to scrape off of the baseballs._

"_Thanks for my pineapple…"_

_Christine, still watching from her vantage point on the stairs, shook her head at her parents' silly ways before running into her room so she wasn't caught. _

_**oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo**_

**Five years ago**

_The car remained silent as Christine looked back and forth from her mother to her father, neither one speaking. Her father's fists clenched the steering wheel while her mother stared out of her window. _

"_So, I think I decided on my science project topic for this year," she said, breaking the silence._

_Her mother, slow to respond, was still faster than her father. "What area of research have you decided on?"_

"_Have you ever heard of street sponges?"_

"_You want to mix chemicals to absorb carbon dioxide?"_

"_It's been tried with caustic soda before, but I was thinking I could try a variety of mixtures with asphalt and see if any of them absorb the gas as a mixture."_

"_That's a very solid project, Christine," her mother said, and she beamed at her mother's approval._

"_What's a street sponge?"Booth asked._

"_It's an idea that a chemical interference in asphalt could absorb ground level gases and reduce air pollution," Christine explained._

_Noticing the pinchy look on Booth's face, Brennan whispered, "It's one of many theories about stopping the effects of auto emissions and other pollution close to ground levels for climate change."_

"_Oh, so now you're speaking to me?"Booth snarled._

_Brennan glared at him before muttering "Pineapple," and turning back to stare out the window._

_Christine looked back and forth between her parents again before breaking the silence once more._

"_So… which one of you did something wrong today?"_

_The partners looked guiltily at one another, before they faced forward._

"_Dad?" Christine asked, pausing to wait for an admission. Then she switched tactics. "Mom?"_

_After several more seconds of silence, she sighed dramatically. "Whatever you did, you should just apologize to each other now. You know you will anyway."_

_Brennan looked at Booth. Booth looked at Brennan. _

_Brennan leaned down to reach for something in her bag while Booth reached into his front pocket._

"_I'm sorry," they said simultaneously._

_He handed her a small can of pineapple rings. She reached and showed him the fresh container of diced pineapples she brought earlier that day for the inevitable apology. _

_They both chuckled at the gesture and Christine went back to reading her book, concluding once again that her parents were weird._

_**oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo**_

**One year ago**

"…_then Jenn said that Serena bumped her simultaneously while she was running and that's what caused her to trip and fall, missing her final goal. And Jenn used to go to Serena's school, and they were friends, so she is now trying to make us all mega-competi…" Christine stopped talking as she entered the kitchen with her Mom._

"_Uh-oh… what did Dad do now?" Christine asked as she looked around the room._

"_That's between your Dad and me," Brennan answered slowly, immediately working to catalog the number of pineapples that littered her kitchen. She quickly counted 12 before she turned to face her daughter, only to see another section of pineapples on the table behind her. _

"_Mom. This is a lot of pineapple. We're going to have to have a luau or something... I'm mean, pineapple is good and all, but I don't want to be eating it the rest of my life. Dad must have done something reeeeally…"_

_Brennan looked at her daughter thoughtfully for a moment, before she nodded and smiled. "Yes, Christine, I think you're right. We do need to have a party to use all of these pineapples before they spoil. Why don't you invite several of your friends over and your Dad can grill… any food that involves pineapples. I imagine kabobs will have a presence. This… Sunday, should work," Brennan said, pretending to think about, making Christine chuckle. "And the guest list is open to both your female and male friends."_

_Never one to let an opportunity pass her by, she hugged Brennan. "Girls and boys? Dad is so gonna… never mind. Thanks Mom!" Christine exclaimed and ran from the room to call her friends._

_Brennan could hear the front door open and Christine loudly greeting and thanking her Dad. As Brennan tried to find space for dozens of pineapples that would also allow her to cook dinner somewhere, Booth walked in to the kitchen, waiting for her to say something._

_When she continued to work without acknowledging him, he sighed and spoke first. "I'm sorry about last night."_

_Brennan quirked her lips, trying to school her features to not reveal that she was over the incident long before she saw the apology pineapples in her kitchen._

"_So you bought out a farmer's market's worth of produce to apologize with?"_

"_I figured this was one of those incidents that called for _a lot_ of apologizing. I'm still really, really sorry," he said, giving his best impression of a lovable puppy._

_Christine later learned that her Dad had been doing some kind of ridiculous gesticulating (he called it dancing, but when it came to her Dad's 'moves,' Christine sided with her Mom's description) on the platform at the lab. He had lost his balance and bumped into an exam table, which had the domino effect of sending three bones sailing, including a tibia dated from the twelfth Century, which shattered into hundreds of pieces her Mom had spent the better part of the night and the following day putting back together._

"_I forgive you Booth," she said._

"_Really?" he asked skeptically. "I've seen interns change their majors and move back home to their parents' house within seconds of doing something similar."_

"_Are you suggesting that I fire you because of your actions?"_

"_No… no…" he said, a little unsurely. Her anger last night boiled up into barely acknowledging his existence, much less speaking to him the rest of the night, this morning or when he brought her lunch that afternoon._

"_Then I suppose my only option is to forgive you. It's fine. I was able to reassemble all of the bones and perform an initial exam before I left to pick up Christine today. Also, while quite indulgent, the pineapples were a nice gesture."_

"_So we're good then?" he asked, stepping closer to her slowly, before finally pulling her into a hug._

"_We're good," she said reassuringly._

_She felt his sigh of relief as he hugged her tighter and she returned it until he let go. "Alright, I'm going to go change before I come help make dinner."_

_Brennan nodded as she turned back to the counter. "Oh, Booth?" she said, as he was exiting the kitchen and he popped his head back in._

"_Yeah?"_

"_Since we have all of these pineapples we need to consume, I told Christine she could have some of her friends over this Sunday and you could break out your tongs and grill for it."_

"_Ummm… aren't you going with Angela to that spa weekend thing?"_

"_That's right. I practically forgot," she said, not even feigning innocence. "But you'll be here this weekend, so it'll be fine."_

"_On Sunday?" he asked weakly._

"_Is that a problem?"_

"_Sunday… Stanley Cup Finals… Flyers could clinch the series with one more win…" he half-spoke, half-muttered, realizing his punishment for breaking her ancient bones had just been served. "Sounds good Bones. Happy to do it."_

_Brennan smiled sweetly at him and he grimaced back before leaving the kitchen. _

"_Oh, and I told her she could invite friends of both genders," she shouted after him._

_All Brennan heard was a long groan in return. _

_**oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo**_

Christine may not understand the power of the pineapple – and maybe she never would.

But that doesn't mean she is above using it to her benefit. Throughout her 16 (almost 17) years, she has witnessed many of her parents' fights, squabbles, arguments, disagreements – whatever they choose to call it – end with a pacifying pineapple or 40.

With one last glance at the brand new, electric-pole-shaped dent in her Dad's car's bumper, she clutches the pineapple she bought on the way home to her chest and walks inside her house to present it – and some car-related news – to her pineapple-loving parents.

* * *

**An important author's note, cause I haven't talked enough already**_**: People throughout the East Coast of the United States have had their homes flooded, destroyed, and are without power, food and access to roads to leave from where their homes may still exist because of Hurricane Sandy. No matter where you live, you CAN help.**_

_**Visit the Red Cross' website in your country to donate and/or in the states, text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate an immediate $10 from your phone. Ten dollars is at least a half-dozen meals for people who are dumpster diving for food right now. Feeling super-generous? Text DONATE to 90999 to pitch in $25 for food and supplies. Please help, however you can.**_

_**And to our Bones-loving family in those areas, I hope you're safe and warm and sheltered and fed. Let us all know you're okay!**_


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